Defiant protesters arrested for opposing the destruction of their livelihoods

On the night of Saturday 17 and throughout the morning of Sunday 18 December many people were arrested in Gloucester Road, more details about numbers and the treatment of political prisoners have since emerged. There is a clip of the arrests and comments about them at the Korean Mediaction website, click on the ‘Down Down WTO’ link top right. The clip ends with a woman speaking in Korean saying “In Korea the police beat us but allow us to go to the toilet” in Gloucester Road, the alleyway down the side of a conveniently positioned bank turned from cash-point convenience to a convenience in another sense of the word.

851 men were taken, 150 women and a 12 year old child. We understand around 90% of them were Korean, with a number of Indian, Indonesian, Thai and taiwanese people as well. Most, if not all of the women have now been released. The trreatment they describe is pretty much illegal and inhumane. Forced to sit on a cold floor in rows, one woman decided to squat instead as the floor was so cold, she was forced to sit. Many of the woman were subjected to body searches and sexual harrassment. I can only dread what must have been going through the mind of the 12 year old child.

Reports have also emerged of activists getting beaten while refusing to give fingerprints.

Prisoners were held in anonymous buildings, a few of them managing to get texts out to their comrades describing the conditions. Despite the presence of interpreters, all of the prisoners were kept ignorant about what was happening to them. After many hours coralled in the road, with nowhere to go for food, water or toilet facilities, the suffering continued in detention. Yeni Rosa Damayanti, an Indoesian activist reported via text that they would only be released if they could prove that they were leaving Hong Kong in the next 24 hours. Being held in undisclosed addresses has made it impossible for friends to bring travel documents to help fulfil this criteria for release.

At the final demonstration on Sunday, two english activists, myself and Fergus Alexander marched carrying a Korean banner, the Koreans having been arrested together. We were part of a splinter of mostly Hong Kong people who marched to the Police Headquarters in Wan Chai. About 100 of us made it to the police HQ where we held (yet another!) impromptu rally. I was invited to speak, when I said that we weren’t dealing with the Hong Kong police anymore, they are now the WTO police the people showed their complete agreement. People were carrying hastily made placards satying “HK Gov’t betray human rights” and someone had printed lots of A4 sheets reading “DICK LEE MING KWAI IS NAZI Heinrich Himmler” I must admit political criticisms of such a statement, but the sentiment was just right.

I’m writing this in Seoul, Korea where I’ll be spending a couple of weeks (still so much to learn from these comrades!). There have been protests at the Chinese consulate here and a press conference. An MP from the Korean Democratic Labour, Kang Ki Kab, was on the protests and has remained in HK until the last Korean is released, another MP will be traveling to HK today to increase the diplomatic pressure on the HK authorities.

If you could possibly help, pressure in the UK and further afield could be really useful. Send an email, a letter, make a phone call. Register your disgust at the breaches of human rights of protesters - peaceful protesters. many of the people in jail did nothing different to me, other than turn up with a Korean passport.
Chinese Ambassador in the UK
Name: Mr Zha Peixin
Address: 49-51 Portland Place, London W1N 3AH
Email: [email protected]
Fax: +44 (0)20 7636 2981 or (0)20 7636 5578
Salutation: Your Excellency

I will be in Korea until the new year, speaking at some meetings and hopefully catching up with all the new friends from here I made in HK. Maybe I’ll try to interview a few and blog the results. Keep checking, there’s definitely more photos to come.

Down, Down, WTO!